Whew!

House renovations, massive rain season and Christmas preparations.  Yes. I know I'm alive!

On Monday our builders came and loaded up all of our unwanted furniture from around the house, and after two very large trailer loads, had left it at a monthly held auction site (We'll see what that result will be later--some of the pieces were nice--so--hopefully someone else will enjoy them.)  That action at least emptied out some much needed space in order to get ready for our proposed renovations.

On Tuesday morning, we had a plant filled, tiled central hallway which housed our noisy and opinionated lorrikeet, Squirt.  By mid-day Tuesday, Squirt had been re-located to our lower bathroom area, out of harm's way, and the plants were stored safely downstairs, while the tiles on the central hallway floor were ripped up.  It didn't take long to discover that we were in trouble.  A small infestation of termites was found in the floorboards, and a pest exterminator was summoned immediately.  He discovered a small nest under that area of the house, treated it, and inspected the rest of the house--giving us a clean slate.  But we waved goodbye to the hallway floor completely.  By Tuesday afternoon, we had a safe, termite proof protective flooring installed, and we waved goodbye to those little chew-mongers!

On Thursday morning we  waved goodbye to the functioning of any water to our bathroom vanity in the middle bathroom as they shut down that plumbing, and proceeded to destroy the vanity in the lower bathroom, in preparation for the new one being installed.  While installing the new vanity, and what should have been a quick job for the plumbers turned out to be a 4 hour marathon as water difficulties and leaks kept appearing--but the end result was worth it!

Friday morning signalled the cutting away of the rain damaged ceiling area in the family room, downstairs, and a new ceiling fitted.  The vanity in the middle bathroom was removed and new tiling surface was laid in the hallway, with the middle bathroom tiled floor being removed and the special flooring surface laid there also.  New doors in various areas were ordered and connections were made with the tiler and painter and plasterer.

At the same time, the removalists arrived early in the morning and took our packed boxes of books, teddy bears, precious goods, and other keepsakes to our storage space in Yeppoon, where we have stored our other furniture and antiques from our beach house. 

During this entire week we have all battled massive rain storms and today was the ultimate.  Roads around the area are cut, with rivers flooding and massive downpours predicted for quite sometime.  The guys were so wet, but they kept working, with squelching boots and still amazingly a good sense of humour.

During this week Chris and I worked into the night cleaning up the days dirt and mess, and packing things for removal or disposal. We have organised new tiles for the bathroom, hallway and new (to be) laundry room. we have designed and ordered a new vanity for the middle bathroom, chosen 25 new kitchen knobs for our kitchen cupboards, picked up a new cable extension for our satellite TV, and have made the mammoth decision to celebrate our last Christmas here in the family room, downstairs.  Talk about breaking tradition!

For the next month we will be living in a painter, wallpaper removal, tiling environment--but hopefully it will all end before Christmas, and we can all say a blessed prayer!

I'll keep you posted....